Little child,
Welcome.

Sit in the lap of my heart
and never leave.

Be born in my breath,
my heartbeat, my thoughts.

Child of God,
flesh of love,

take my hand
and lead me.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 25, 2019

Angels say, 
        Holiness is near.

Joseph says,
        Welcome mystery.

The stars say, 
        Open your eyes in wonder.

Shepherds say,
         We who are poor are not afraid.

The sheep say,
         Hush.

Mary says, 
        Your struggles are blessed.

The child says,
        Your flesh is my flesh.

God says,
         I am here.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 24, 2019

May the coming of Christ
deepen your wonder
and widen your gratitude.

May the helpless child
bring forth your tenderness
and strengthen your love.

May the gentle mother
give you courage to embrace the holy
and find the divine in yourself.

May the child who shares our death
bring light into your darkness,
and hope to your weariness.

May the holy family in the stable
open your heart to the poor,
the homeless, the refugee.

May the child sought by soldiers
embolden you to cry out
and empower you to resist injustice.

May the angels who sing above you
awaken your heart
and surround you with beauty.

May the One Who Comes
remind you of your belovedness
and fill you with kindness and mercy,
and give you joy.

December 23, 2019

In our northern woods we hunger for the sun.
Our neighbors in Australia suffer intense heat.
This is the solstice: what is winter for me
is summer for you; that both are joined.

God pulls the mighty down from their thrones
and raises and empowers the lowly.
This is justice: that we are in this together,
that life is never mine alone.

In all our differences this we have in common,
that we are given to each other; and
that we are hungry, incomplete, that we are waiting,
that who we are has not yet been revealed.

In the fullness of time, the dance of both night and day,
the holy One comes to us, extreme of us and God,
solstice of both human and divine, and blesses us
with each other, completes us with each other.

Emmanuel, come.

____________________
Weather Report

Extreme,
with mixed banality and wonder,
as a warm mass of heaven meets solid earth
and human and divine occur simultaneously.
Expect periods of bright darkness
and revelation that remains mystery.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 20, 2019

We sang Christmas carols in the gym at the prison.
The visitors sang out on all the goldies—
all those old British tunes and their smooth rhymes,
all the gloooo—ho-ho-ho-ho-horias.
The inmates mumbled along.
Everybody sang to the backs of the chairs in front of them.
Then we got to Feliz Navidad.We didn’t know that one so well—
but the guys belted it out with gusto.
They sang it to each other.
This was their song.

Shepherds on the hillside,
suddenly given good news
in their own language.

This is the mystery of Christmas:
God has come to sing our song,
in our language,
not the refined arias of angelic choruses
but the gritty, plain language of life lived,
failed, loved anyway—and saved. Feliz Navidad.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 19, 2019

          Joseph, son of David,
         do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,
         for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
                  —Matthew 1.20

The question is not whether you love her.
The question is whether you will marry her.

You have been given only glorious ambiguity,
darkness marbled with starlight,
possibility breathed in silence.
You seek assurance; none is given.

Your life will not be as you wish it.
Those you love will let you down.
This world is full of flaws and disappointment.
It is also full of the Mysterious One.

Give yourself without knowing.
Betrothed, beloved, to uncertainty,
pledge your loyalty to this one you cannot know.
Do not pray to understand:
pray to be present, to be faithful, to be loving
when you cannot know what will come of it.

Do not be afraid to take this life
and marry it.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 18, 2019

Lights out,
dark house.
Night sky.
Stars murmuring
their secrets.
Little candle,
light reaching
into blackness,
sparkling black.
Angels maybe
warming up,
maybe not.
Mystery descends,
personal darkness.
The more
than visible
moves closer.
Silence is
an open
door. Wait.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 17, 2019

Earth and sky have coupled in the night,
the clouds have laid their body
down on the ground,
rounding, mounding everything,
disguised in white. Changed.
Every twig and branch is a word
in an unknown tongue, underlined in black,
bearing the weight of glory’s flesh.
Little saplings, snow-bent, bow in patient modesty.
The sun is absent,not moving.
Everything is still, silenced,
still contemplating what has happened.

Then a cloud moves.
Sun spills its golden confidence
into the blue woods,
a temple of surprises.

It is not too late to become a new person.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

December 16, 2019

         Strengthen the weak hands,
                  and make firm the feeble knees.
         Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
                  “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God,
                  who will come and save you.”
                                    —Isaiah 35.3-4

You who sit by the bedside,
who stay late to finish the report,
who wrestle your tireless demons,
         do not fear.
You who gaze at the x-ray,
who face another meeting at the school,
who care for the aging parent,
         have courage.
You who lament our cruelty and greed,
who write letters about the climate,
who stand in silence outside the prison,
         stay firm.
God is not far, nor careless, nor scornful.
God is here, here to accompany,
here to love, here to save.
         Keep faith.
When you are weary God will strengthen you;
when you are afraid God will sustain you;
when you cannot go on, rest your head:
         God will carry on.
In your weak hands, in your feeble knees
the Beloved is present, full of grace:
not the outcome but the presence, always.
         Take courage.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
December 13, 2019

         You have brought down the powerful from their thrones,
                  and lifted up the lowly;
         you have filled the hungry with good things,
                  and sent the rich away empty.
                                    —Luke 1.52-53

Mary, peasant prophet, who changed history
without a man’s permission or patronage,
who married heaven and earth in your flesh,
Mary, Virgin Mother, Queen of Heaven,
whose submission is your throne:

you have seen the Righteous One’s opposites:
to make the human divine, to make earth into heaven,
to welcome the sovereign in a hovel, to make flesh holy.
You have seen the the salt of this sweet season:
to wrench our injustice:
not only to lift up the lowly but to pull the mighty down,
not just to feed the hungry but to empty the hands of the rich.
You have seen the paradox of God:
to reverse our own undoing,
to negate our negations, to disarm our powers.
You have seen the salvation of God:
to condemn our condemning.

Mary, open our eyes again
to the consuming fire hidden in the lily,
the beloved birth that is the ruin of our plans;
open our hearts to what it is the gift has come to destroy
and the danger in our consent.

May we conceive and bear such love.
Turn us, that it may be with us according to God’s word.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
December 12, 2019